Tag: facebook

Plaintiff sued Facebook and several media companies (including CNN, PBS and NPR) after Facebook suspended his account for alleged spamming. Plaintiff had posted articles and comments in an effort to “set the record straight” regarding Kellyanne Conway’s comments on the “Bowling Green Massacre”. Plaintiff claimed, among other things, that Facebook and the other defendants violated the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. It observed the well-established principle that these provisions of the constitution only apply to governmental actors – and do not apply to private parties. Facebook and the other media defendants could not plausibly be considered governmental actors.

It also noted that efforts to apply the First Amendment to Facebook have consistently failed. See, for example, Forbes v. Facebook, Inc., 2016 WL 676396, at *2 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 18, 2016) (finding that Facebook is not a state actor for Section 1983 First Amendment claim); and Young v. Facebook, Inc., 2010 WL 4269304, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 25, 2010) (holding that Facebook is not a state actor).

About the Author: Evan Brown is a Chicago technology and intellectual property attorney. Call Evan at (630) 362-7237, send email to ebrown [at] internetcases.com, or follow him on Twitter @internetcases. Read Evan’s other blog, UDRP Tracker, for information about domain name disputes.

Someone set up a bogus Facebook account and posted, without consent, images and video of Plaintiff engaged in a lewd act. Facebook finally deleted the account, but not until two days had passed and Plaintiff had threatened legal action.

Plaintiff sued anyway, alleging, among other things, intrusion upon seclusion, public disclosure of private facts, and infliction of emotional distress. In his complaint, Plaintiff emphasized language from Facebook’s Terms of Service that prohibited users from posting content or taking any action that “infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise would violate the law.”

Facebook moved to dismiss the claims, making two arguments: (1) that the claims contradicted Facebook’s Terms of Service, and (2) that the claims were barred by the Communications Decency Act at 47 U.S.C. 230. The court granted the motion to dismiss.

It looked to the following provision from Facebook’s Terms of Service:

Although we provide rules for user conduct, we do not control or direct users’ actions on Facebook and are not responsible for the content or information users transmit or share on Facebook. We are not responsible for any offensive, inappropriate, obscene, unlawful or otherwise objectionable content or information you may encounter on Facebook. We are not responsible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any user of Facebook.

The court also examined the following language from the Terms of Service:

We try to keep Facebook up, bug-free, and safe, but you use it at your own risk. We are providing Facebook as is without any express or implied warranties including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not guarantee that Facebook will always be safe, secure or error-free or that Facebook will always function without disruptions, delays or imperfections. Facebook is not responsible for the actions, content, information, or data of third parties, and you release us, our directors, officers, employees, and agents from any claims and damages, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with any claims you have against any such third parties.

The court found that by looking to the Terms of Service to support his claims against Facebook, Plaintiff could not likewise disavow those portions of the Terms of Service which did not support his case. Because the Terms of Service said, among other things, that Facebook was not responsible for the content of what its users post, and that the a user uses the service as his or her on risk, the court could not place the responsibility onto Facebook for the offensive content.

Moreover, the court held that the Communications Decency Act shielded Facebook from liability. The CDA immunizes providers of interactive computer services against liability arising from content created by third parties. The court found that Facebook was an interactive computer service as contemplated under the CDA, the information for which Plaintiff sought to hold Facebook liable was information provided by another information content provider, and the complaint sought to hold Facebook as the publisher or speaker of that information.

Caraccioli v. Facebook, 2016 WL 859863 (N.D. Cal., March 7, 2016)

About the Author: Evan Brown is a Chicago attorney advising enterprises on important aspects of technology law, including software development, technology and content licensing, and general privacy issues.

Defendant set up more than 70 bogus Facebook accounts and impersonated online advertising companies (including by sending Facebook falsified bank records) to obtain an advertising credit line from Facebook. He ran more than $340,000 worth of ads for which he never paid. Facebook sued, among other things, for breach of contract, fraud, and violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Despite the court giving defendant several opportunities to be heard, defendant failed to answer the claims and the court entered a default.

The court found that Facebook had successfully pled a CFAA claim. After Facebook implemented technological measures to block defendant’s access, and after it sent him two cease-and-desist letters, defendant continued to intentionally access Facebook’s “computers and servers to obtain account credentials, Facebook credit lines, Facebook ads, and other information.” The court entered an injunction against defendant accessing or using any Facebook website or service in the future, and set the matter over for Facebook to prove up its $340,000 in damages. It also notified the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The owners of an LLC successfully published a magazine for several years, but the business declined and the company eventually filed bankruptcy. While the bankruptcy proceedings were still underway, one of the owners started up a new magazine publishing the same subject matter. He essentially took over the old company’s website to promote the new magazine. And he posted to the LLC’s Facebook page on three separate occasions, “reminding” those who liked the page to instead like his new company’s Facebook page.

The bankruptcy trustee began an adversary proceeding against the owner asserting, among other things, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair trade practices, and copyright infringement. The bankruptcy court held a trial on these claims and found the owner liable.

On the breach of fiduciary duty claim, the court equated the “reminding” of Facebook users to visit and like the new company’s Facebook page was equivalent to using the company’s confidential information. Similarly, as for the unfair trade practices claim (under the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act), the court found that social media is “an important marketing tool,” and held that “taking away followers of [the old company] and diverting them to [the Facebook page of the new company]” was an unfair trade practice.

On the copyright infringement claim, the court found that the images and articles on the website belonged to the old company under the work made for hire doctrine and that the owner had not obtained consent nor paid compensation for their use in connection with the new enterprise.

While a divorce case was pending, the judge overseeing the case sent the wife a Facebook friend request. The wife did not accept the request. Thereafter, the judge entered a final judgment that was more favorable to the husband. After the wife found out about other cases in which the judge had reached out to litigants through social media, she filed a motion to disqualify the judge. The judge refused to disqualify herself.

The wife sought review with the appellate court. On appeal, the court reversed and remanded, holding that the judge should have disqualified herself:

The “friend” request placed the litigant between the proverbial rock and a hard place: either engage in improper ex parte communications with the judge presiding over the case or risk offending the judge by not accepting the “friend” request.

Moreover, the court found the problem of friending a party in a pending case “of far more concern” than a judge’s Facebook friendship with a lawyer. Forbidding judges and counsel to be Facebook friends, especially in smaller counties with tight-knit legal communities, would be unworkable. But with a friend request from the judge, a party has a “well founded fear” of not receiving a fair and impartial trial.

Case provides valuable guidance to judges on how to responsibly handle social media connections and communications.

Judge sent defendant to prison for assaulting defendant’s girlfriend. Defendant appealed his sentence claiming, among other things, that the judge was not impartial, given that the judge was Facebook friends with the girlfriend-victim’s father, and that the two of them had communicated through Facebook’s private message feature. The appellate court held that the judge did not err by not recusing himself.

The appellate court found that no rule prohibited the judge from being Facebook friends with the victim’s father. And the judge followed the proper procedure concerning the private message by:

discontinuing reading it once he realized it pertained to the case

warning the victim’s father not to communicate ex parte in that manner

printing the message out and placing it in the case file

notifying counsel for the parties

Moreover, the private message was not adverse to defendant, but actually asked for leniency. On these facts, the court found an insufficient showing of bias to find reversible error.

Defendant hairstylist signed an employment agreement with plaintiff that restricted her from soliciting any of plaintiff’s clients or customers for 2 years. Four days after she quit plaintiff’s salon, her new employer announced on Facebook that defendant had come on board as a stylist. One of defendant’s former clients left a comment to that post about looking forward to an upcoming appointment.

Either before or after she left plaintiff’s employ (the opinion is not clear about this), defendant had become Facebook friends with at least 8 of the customers she served while working for plaintiff.

Plaintiff sued for breach of contract and sought a preliminary injunction. The court denied the motion, in part because plaintiff failed to show evidence that defendant had violated the nonsolicitation provision.

The court found that it did not constitute solicitation of plaintiff’s customers to post a notice on Facebook that defendant was beginning work at a new salon. The court said it would have viewed it differently had plaintiff contacted a client to tell her that she was moving to a new salon, but there was no evidence of any such contact.

As for having clients as Facebook friends, the court noted that:

[O]ne can be Facebook friends with others without soliciting those friends to change hair salons, and [plaintiff] has presented no evidence of any communications, through Facebook or otherwise, in which [defendant] has suggested to these Facebook friends that they should take their business to her chair at [her new employer].

Plaintiff sued defendant for personal injury. Defendant saw a photo plaintiff had publicly posted on Facebook of herself skiing. When defendant requested plaintiff to turn over the rest of her Facebook content (presumably to find other like-pictures which would undermine plaintiff’s case), plaintiff sought a protective order. The trial court granted the motion for protective order, but required plaintiff to turn over every photo she had posted to Facebook of herself engaged in a “sporting activity”.

Defendants appealed the entry of the protective order. On review, the appellate court reversed and remanded, finding that defendants had made a showing that at least some of the discovery sought would result in the disclosure of relevant or potentially relevant evidence.

But due to the “likely presence” of private and irrelevant information in plaintiff’s account, the court ordered the information be turned over to the judge for an in camera review prior to disclosure to defendants.

Whether the plaintiff effectively preserved her Facebook account information may be an issue here. The facts go back to 2009. One is left to wonder whether and to what extent plaintiff has not gone back and deleted information from her account which would bear on the nature and extent of her injuries. It goes to show that social media discovery disputes can take on a number of nuances.

Appellant, a healthcare clinic organized as an LLC in Minnesota, got sued in Tennessee. It never showed up to defend itself, so the Tennessee court entered a default judgment against it. When the plaintiff sought to have the Tennessee judgment recognized in Minnesota, the clinic challenged the underlying lawsuit, claiming that the court in Tennessee did not have personal jurisdiction over the clinic, as it had not been properly served with the civil “warrant”.

In this case, the court found that the clinic had been properly served because the papers were opened by the wife of the clinic’s owner. The court found she was “intertwined” with the clinic, and should have known what to do with the papers, based in part on the fact that she was “prominently displayed” on the clinic’s website and interacted with commenters on the clinic’s Facebook page.

No doubt Facebook use can be an enemy to marriage — see, for example, this recent article about how Facebook was named in a third of divorce filings in 2011. A recent case from the military courts shows how using Facebook can put a spouse’s very life in peril.

Defendant wife became angry when she accessed her husband’s Facebook account. An argument ensued between defendant and her husband about the content of husband’s Facebook page, which escalated and turned violent. The two struggled, with defendant yanking the modem out of the wall and striking husband. She continued to hit him, causing him to back into the kitchen, where defendant grabbed a knife and stabbed husband in the abdomen, saying, “that’s what you get, mother fucker.”

Husband survived, and wife was tried and convicted of attempted manslaughter. She sought review with the Navy–Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals. On appeal the court affirmed the conviction and five year sentence. It held the evidence at trial was sufficient to support the verdict, and that defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights had not been violated.

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Evan Brown is an attorney in Chicago helping clients identify and manage issues concerning technology development, copyright, trademarks, domain names, software licensing, service agreements and other matters involving the internet and new media.

Evan is a partner in the law firm of Much Shelist, P.C. He is an adjunct professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law, and is a Domain Name Panelist with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).